If you wou’d not be forgotten As soon as you are dead and rotten, Either write things worth reading, Or do things worth the writing.
If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.
If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.
If I could always read, I should never feel the want of society.
I learned to write fiction the way I learned to read fiction – by skipping the parts that bored me.
I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me.
I have a brother and sister; my mother does not care for thought, and father, too busy with his briefs to notice what we do. He buys me many books, but begs me not to read them, because he fears they joggle the mind.
Even when the characters are supposed to be accustomed to the wonder I try to weave an air of awe and impressiveness corresponding to what the reader should feel. A casual style ruins any serious fantasy.
Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.
Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.
All attempts at gaining literary polish must begin with judicious reading, and the learner must never cease to hold this phase uppermost. In many cases, the usage of good authors will be found a more effective guide than any amount of precept.
